Welcome to Survival of the Fittest, a RPing board loosely based off of Koshun Takami's Battle Royale, with its own unique plot and spin on the 'deadly game'. We've been around quite a while, and are now in our thirteenth year, so don't worry about us going anywhere any time soon!

If you're a newcomer and interested in joining, then please make sure you check out the rules. You may also want to read the FAQ, introduce yourself and stop by the chat to meet some of our members. If you're still not quite sure where to start, then we have a great New Member's Guide with a lot of useful information about getting going. Don't hesitate to PM a member of staff (they have purple usernames) if you have any questions about SOTF and how to get started!

If the wards were anything, it was creepy. That was snap judgement Trav had made upon entering them and after spending a little while in them his opinion was unchanged. They were just empty rooms, ok so empty was incorrect. Some of them had personal effects in and that made it even creepier. People who were "insane", finger quotes mandatory, had been kept in the rooms. Judging from the way they had been laid out the person who had been in the room they were currently squatting in was basically normal. There was nothing Trav could see that indicated they had been deserving of being trapped on the island and in the tiny room they had to live in. He looked at the picture he had found once more. A group of three smiling people, two men and one woman. There were a lot of different permutations to which of them, if any, had ended up in the asylum and what their relationship to each other was. He had been trying to think through all of them but the amount of possibilities messed with his head. He was certain one of the three had ended up in the same room he was in now however.

Placing the picture face-down on the floor Trav looked over at Cass, they were still together and still out of trouble. It must have been a minor miracle. The worst thing they had encountered was the corpse of Jane. Still no sign of Noodle though. It was making doubt start to gnaw away at him and ugly questions were starting to emerge from the darkest parts of his mind to come to the forefront.

What if she's in trouble? What if she's hurt? What if she's dead and you just don't know yet?

As uninvited as they were the messages they gave him were important; until the next announcement happened he had no idea of what Noodle's status was. He helped keep in focus, but he didn't want to dwell on them. It was something to consider but he would drive himself mad if that was all he thought about.

Cass seemed to be doing fine which was good. If Noodle was No.1 priority, Cass had become a close No.2. He knew that when push came to shove he'd defend them.

"They'll tell you failure is not an option. That is ridiculous. Failure is always an option. Failure is the most readily available option at all times. But it's a choice. You can choose to fail. You can choose to succeed."

Trav thought about Wade's question. In truth he didn't have an answer. There was no real plan. Just his desire to find Noodle. That was priority number one. He couldn't think of a good way of going about it, there were too many different variables. Trying to make a plan around it would on serve to drive him insane especially as there were so many chances for them to walk past each other with out realizing. Trav didn't dwell on it.

He just shrugged at Wade.

"Dunno man."

He and Cass had done fine without a plan so far, there was no need to spent hours trying to thing one up only for it to be rendered null and void as soon as the next announcement hit. It was better to wait and see what the next morning brought and figure things out from there, once they had an idea of the lay of the land.

Trav turned and looked at Irene as she spoke. He thought he got the point she was trying to make but he didn't feel inclined to say he agreed. Sure bad people existed, but he doubted or just didn't want to believe that some of his classmates had just been waiting for this opportunity. For one or maybe two people sure but for the rest, that didn't line up.

He shook his head.

"I don't think so, sure maybe a couple of them." He thought back to Vanessa, how she was acting, he could see that happening with much more tragic results. "I think it's just a group of kids stuck in a situation that no one can be prepared for and a lot of what's happened is the result of that."

Trav was regretting even saying anything. He didn't want to contribute to it too much. He didn't have the argumentative ability necessary to convince people of his points or the desire to even do it. As far as he was concerned he had said his part.

Of course the discussion continued without him so he listened in, occasionally taking a sip of water or gnawing on a protein bar. If he had to choose a side he would have gone with Cass. There was probably some favoritism going on there, he was able to admit that. But to him it didn't really matter what the reasoning for the killers was, he just knew that when the time came he needed to step up and defend the people he cared about. Everything else involving the killers wasn't as important as that to him.

He looked up when Wade finished off his speech and grinned. He didn't know how much Wade knew about him but he was willing to guess not much based on the question.

"We're fine for protection." He nodded in the direction of Irene and her shotgun. "We have that which will put off basically everyone and if anyone does want to try their luck and have a fight I'll be able to beat them."

Trav wasn't exaggerating for effect. He believed in his heart that when it got down to it he would be able to beat anyone on the island in a straight fight. The only two people that were even close to him in his opinion were Noodle and Rod and only Noodle was on the island with him. On top of that, they were basically best friends so the chances of them ever fighting were nearly zero. That knowledge helped keep him relaxed, knowing that the only thing he had to fear was a gun. He didn't know how many people did have guns however but he imagined if a killer had one he would find out quickly. The announcements also helped give them information like that.

"Don't worry too much about this stuff. If someone does come after us with intent to harm we'll be able to either scare them off or incapacitate them. We won't even need to go further than that unless there's no other choice."

Trav looked away and busied himself with sorting his bag. He didn't want the conversation to keep going but it appeared that they had gone past the point of no return. Cass was laying into Irene and Wade, Trav agreed with most of her points but he didn't have as much as a vehement feeling on the subject. It was how he was he supposed, always relaxed, the fact he had come to terms with the most likely outcome of the next few days helped he supposed.

Irene wanted someone to transfer her anger at being helpless and lost on the island onto he would have said at a guess. He could understand it; it was what a lot of fighters did. They would convince themselves that it was kill or be killed and the person they were up against was their enemy who wanted to take everything from them. For some guys that was the only way they could bring themselves to even fight to begin with, of course once the fight was over they went back to being cool, well-adjusted, relaxed guys. But for that time preparing to fight and fighting they hated their opponent more than anything else in the world. Trav had fought a guy like that once, he convinced himself that Trav was some young kid wanting to jump him in the queue for a title shot. Not entirely wrong, and he hadn't been able to stop him anyway. Trav had beaten him and moved on but he still remembered the guys face at the stare down, pure hate and it was the same for the four minutes they spent together in the cage.

"I wouldn't try to reassert some control on the situation by taking it out on others." He said eventually, looking over Irene. "It sounds like a dangerous way of thinking."

Wade brought up one of the older Survival of the Fittest incidents. Trav wasn't that familiar with what had happened but he knew some group had rescued a bunch of kids. He didn't want to have to rely on that happening again though. He nodded though, silently agreeing with Wade that it was a possibility, as long of a shot as it looked. He appreciated Wade bringing it up though, a little bit of hope wouldn't hurt, as long as it was tempered with realistic expectations.

"There's no point to this whole thing." He said softly, directing it more to Cass than anyone else. "But right now, we're doing a good thing, we're not taking part. So they won't get any satisfaction out of us or be able to use us to prove whatever their point is."

It was as much as he could offer. It was hard to know what the right thing to say was. But he guessed reassurance was the best he could offer in the end.

As always, once all the emotions came out the argument died down into nothing but awkward silence. It was how it always went. As if on queue an awkward apology followed from Irene. Trav always saw the scenario play out but had never been a part of it. He had never had a personal stake in it before either so that was also a different feeling. Every single time.

There was no point in him saying anything really. Everyone had said their piece and that was that.

Trav sighed and stood up, stretching his back and legs.

"I'm going to go for a walk. Stretch my legs." He missed out the part where he wanted to clean the discussion out of his mind.

He looked over the others as much as he wanted to just clear his thoughts he knew that just walking off by himself was stupid and selfish. At the same time, what he was about to do counted as pretty selfish.

"Cass, want to come with? Get some air?" After a small pause Trav added in an amendment. "Or anyone else, doesn't really matter." He shrugged and turned to head off down the corridor.

It wasn't like he was going anywhere though. He had left his pack in the room. He just didn't need to be in that room any more. He hoped Cass did take him up on his offer.